Infection
by Yessica-N
Summary: Wilson suffers and has an epiphany


**This is my first dabble in this fandom, be merciful. Basically my girlfriend wanted Wilson suffering, so here is Wilson suffering...**

* * *

The scorching heat beats down on him, pulsing waves in tune to the pounding in his head. Wilson rubs a hand against his feverish forehead, the flower petals of his garland are sticky with sweat and he cringes as a few stay glued to his skin.

A bunny scurries into its hole when he approaches, its surprised little noise the only thing breaking the silence of midday. A few tuffs of grass stand not far off, unmoving as there is no wind to stir them, but Wilson feels far too tired to harvest them right now.

Every step is pure agony. Pain, sharp like the fangs that initially bit into him, shoots down his leg at the slightest movement. Walking is becoming quite bothersome, not to mention he has no idea where he is going in the first place.

Running from the hounds has turned him around somewhat, and without a map to consult or any other familiar landmarks to use as orientation, Wilson is quite lost.

He knows camp can't be far off. He had only gone a little way, finding shelter with a stray pack of Beefalo. They were not too annoyed by him, but the hounds had quickly agitated them enough to wear out their patience and meet with their horns.

Not before one of them managed to lodge its teeth into Wilson's leg sadly.

The fabric of his pants is torn, stained darkly with blood as the wound bleeds sluggishly. Naturally this would happen when he hadn't any items on him to remedy the situation.

The high temperature is making it hard for him to think. The grassland seems to stretch on forever, pale yellow in every direction and there is nothing to do but saunter vaguely down the way he thinks his camp might be. Every few feet he has to stop, breathing through another bound of pain ripping through him.

He closes his eyes, just for a moment, walking blindly for a while, just to shield himself from the glaring sunlight and when he opens them again Wilson can see the vague outline of green in the distance.

It crosses his mind briefly, that this might just be a hallucination induced by overheating or blood loss or some horrible combination of both, but he doesn't care. His leg feels almost numb now, probably the adrenaline kicking in and while that might not be a good thing he uses it to his advantage now, putting just a bit more strain onto it than strictly logical.

He's running, more like hobbling, the sun casting a small shadow in front of him and if he just keeps following that, chasing it as it heads in front of him, maybe it will be fine after all.

It takes seemingly forever, the tree gradually growing in size, its image wavering due to the air currents. But as he finally approaches it, he knows its not a mirage after all.

Wilson's body slumps against it, his hands catching on the rough bark and he turns around, slides down until his back is fully against the tree and his legs are stretched in front of him. It's still way too hot for comfort, but the shade is a welcome reprise nonetheless.

He picks at the wound for a bit, a neat row of teeth marks with chunks of flesh missing, and sighs. Once more, he closes his eyes, breathing in the smell of pine and flowers not too far off, letting the dull throbbing in his leg pull him into a slowing rhythm, a cascade of tiredness washing over him all of the sudden.

He should get up. He should find his way to camp, get himself fixed up and eat something. He should do anything but fall asleep in the middle of nowhere.

Sleep pulls at him, demandingly, and Wilson doesn't have the strength to deny it.

* * *

A bird call wakes him, hours later. His head shoots up, bouncing against the tree trunk painfully and Wilson blinks quickly, trying to remember how to breathe.

The soreness is the first thing he registers. There is a profound ache, like being stabbed by tiny little needles repeatedly, running all over his left leg, as if his circulation isn't functioning properly. He pushes at it instinctively, maybe to get the blood flowing again, before remembering the wound and immediately regretting his decision.

It hurts.

It hurts quite a bit, actually.

He doubles over, grasps his knees and rocks in place to dispel the pain, muttering a few foul words under his breath.

After a few minutes his vision clears enough for him to see again. It's still warm, uncomfortably so, and he feels sweaty and gross and in dire need of a bath. But the light is filtered, darker, and Wilson knows it's the approach of dusk.

He tries to get up, but his leg won't cooperate. He looks at it closer, peeling back a bit of the torn fabric that has now firmly made its home within his flesh, sticking to the skin unpleasantly. It isn't wet with blood anymore. Instead, it has dried into a semi-hardness, almost gooey in texture.

Which is oddly fascinating, if also entirely disconcerting.

But it's swollen, the skin around the puncture marks feels heated to the touch and there is a distinct redness that concerns him.

He supposes hounds don't score very highly on dental hygiene.

He opens his backpack, using some twigs and rope to approximate something vaguely resembling a make-shift crutch. It helps, taking a lot of his weight off his injured leg, but Wilson knows he needs to get home quick.

The wound is already infected. Right now, there is only minor edema and hypovolemic shock to contend with. Combined with his rising fever and rapid pulse however, it won't be long before the situation devolves into something life-threatening.

The first lurching steps are difficult, his leg cramps up at the slightest movement, the pain now practically residing in his veins and slowly making its way through his entire body. But after a while he falls into an easy tempo, leaning into the crutch every other beat and allowing the injured appendage to be dragged along the ground instead.

The dark is coming in fast now, and while Wilson hasn't become any wiser as to where his camp is, the distant shine of stars now graces the sky, giving him something to work with at least. He starts heading north, hoping with all his heart to reach the camp before nightfall.

He has a spare torch, so the creeping tendrils of darkness that plague this world aren't of immediate concern to him. But he rather not spent the night outside, to be set on by spiders or whatever else may be lurking among the trees, with infection steadily overtaking his body.

The walk is tedious, once or twice he stops, thinking he recognizes a landmark, but every time he is met with disappointment when he realizes the environment is still unfamiliar to him. The constant rush of relief, only to be snuffed out by despondency only second later wears him down, and when the landscape starts to significantly darken around him he feels the last vestiges of hope ebb away.

Part of him is already resigned to spending the night in the open, but years of dabbling in science has made Wilson stubborn and unrelenting, even as he starts to feel the need to squint just to make out his surroundings.

His vision is swimming, dark spots threatening at the corners and his head feels full of nothingness, like after being hit with a strong anesthesia. He clenches at the crutch, knuckles turning white from the effort and arms straining.

He doesn't even recognize the campsite at first.

They are just odd shapes in the fading light, the wooden posts of his farms, the unclear outline of a bee box. Wilson's brain needs a few seconds to catch up, registering only that this is some sign of life he has come across, confusion because he had thought he was the only other living person in this hellscape.

Then it strikes him. This is his sign of life.

He immediately sets to work on lighting his fire, hands fumbling with the flint, trembling from exertion and anemia. The heath isn't very pleasant, especially on his already feverish skin, but the light chases away the shadows lurking on the sides of his peripheral vision and for that, Wilson is grateful.

He collapses eventually, with barely enough presence of mind to open a nearby chest and look for his medical supplies. Or, well, what he has harvested and managed to repurpose as medical supplies for dire circumstances.

He feels like he could sleep for years, but forces his mind to stay awake for just a few minutes longer as he cleans the wound, dressing it with practiced ease, he can't help but recall that fleeting moment.

The split second when this camp hadn't been perceived as his own and for a heartbeat Wilson had thought there was another person here. A fellow survivor. Another living soul.

"Well..." He says aloud, the fire crackling comfortably and his leg once more going slowly numb as he rests it, the crutch discarded to use as fuel later. "At least I'm not entirely alone."

And the shadows shift, answering him in kind.

* * *

**Tumblr: sharada-n**


End file.
